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Will there be a volume 3 soon?

Bilinear filtering was something planned.  I experimented with it a few months ago but I couldn't get it fast enough and so I never demoed  it in one of the videos.  It's also something that can be disabled in the game options.  It helps cut down on the flickering in the walking and turning animations but it is at the cost of some crispness.

As for planning, I have a game design document which mostly focuses on the story aspect of the game and I use Trello for keeping track of implementation work.  Because both of these have some of the story information in them, I wont open them up to the public because it would give away the story.  However, the majority of what is in Trello deals with the rendering engine.  Until I get that performing well, there isn't much of a game and that's why I'm focusing on it.  There are some optimizations that I have tabled for later (even updates for after the game is released) which Bilinear filtering was one of them and then there are some that are going to be such a critical part of the pipeline that I have to implement them now or it will cause a dangerous refactor.

However, the Bilinear filtering basically fell into my lap when I stumbled on that article.  To quote Bob Ross, a "happy accident", if you will.  I was just striking while the iron was hot for a quick achievement.  It only affected one line of code in the pipeline.  So not a serious impact.

On the other hand, my current work is on the dynamic map loading mechanism. That's designed to make the world appear seamless by loading the world in chunks as the player moves around.  No loading screens except in some rare cases.  This has triggered an intensive refactor -- one of those optimizations that needs to be done now rather than later because it is going to gut my whole graphics pipeline.

As for demo releases, I hadn't thought about those just yet.  I didn't think anyone would want to toy with such primitive demos.  Maybe when I get the map collision implemented so that the player can't just walk through walls, then I'll start releasing some tech demos and see if I can get some feedback on render performance and quality from everyone.  It's just too early for anything else.

My plan was to have all of the story locations as fixed content but then have some procedurally generated content scattered around.  

lol.  I'm not there yet.  But getting close.  I'm going to be toying with map events pretty soon.

Good.  I'm still working on this project almost everyday.  I'm working on the "3D" part of it but it's a challenge to get right.  My first attempt had flaws and I'm trying to iron them out.

Thanks.  I should be posting an update that showcases the dungeon view of the city soon.  Still a long ways away from being playable though.  I will eventually put out a call for play testers to test everything from the gameplay to just hammering at the interface to see if they can break it.

The mechanics that I'm currently using are from an open source table top set of rules with some very minor modifications.  These rules have been around for a couple of years with good reviews so I consider them fairly well play tested from that viewpoint.  But how I employ them in the game, will definitely have to be play tested.

I consider combat just another option in solving a puzzle and the RPG rules reflect that.  It maybe that the player would be better off avoiding it altogether and use their heads.

The ratio of combat to adventure will be dictated by the story.  There wont be puzzles that don't make sense for the situation and that includes combat.  I will do everything I can to respect a player's time by using fast travel features,  efficient turn based combat and streamlined dialogue.  But I still want to tell a good story.

If you have ever played a game by Spiderweb, I'm aiming for something a little less involved than their stories but something similar.  I always loved their work.

You can reach me at james@dungeon-crawl.com.

Thank you!

Going back through some of the games that I'm using as inspiration, none of them are as flat shaded as the ones that I have right now.  All are on the shaded side of things and the style ranges from cartoonish (Eye of the Beholder) to semi-realistic (Lands of Lore, Realms of Arkania).  Arkania's portraits has some variance in them depending on the type of character illustrated.  Some were more serious looking with a painterly style while others leaned more to the cartoon style probably because different artists were involved but all had depth.

I think the ideal spot is to walk the line of semi-realistic with  just a hint of cartoon style to lighten the mood.

Yeah, I find the artwork less frustrating, more relaxing, than the programming but I'm better at the programming than the artwork.  I tend to intersperse the two together so that I can use the artwork to relax and completing a piece gives me a feeling of accomplishment.  The only problem I have with artwork is indecision because I'm still an amateur.  lol.

I looked at Curious Expedition 1 & 2.  It looks like they changed from pixel art to vector art.  I'm not really a big fan of vector art unless it is done really well.  I don't use vectors except with interface elements.  When I draw character with vectors they always look like colouring book drawings so I tend to avoid it unless that's the look I'm going for.

When I settle on a portrait style, I'll release another dev log about it.

Thanks.  I very much appreciate the input on the dev logs.  That is something I haven't tackled before but I'll try to post regular updates and issues as I go along.  Feedback and input is always appreciated. 

Thanks.  I am working on new portraits for the party members.  I wasn't 100% satisfied with the originals, myself.  I think it's because they are so flat in many cases -- especially compared to the NPCs.   But I also don't want to make them too realistic looking.  I'm aiming for around 40 different human portraits so that there is a variety to choose from.

Thank you!

Thank you so much!

I don't have a dev log yet.  I probably should put one up.

I'm sure the purest pixel artists out there will quickly say that my stuff is not technically pixel art.  I tend to mix in low resolution digital painting for the backgrounds and use pixel art for characters and some interface elements.  I find it gives it a nice combination.

I grew up on games like SSI's AD&D series, Bard's tale, Ultima Underground, Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore and some early versions of Wizardry 6/7 and Might and Magic 3-5.  Some of the early ones only had art in 16 colours similar to Telwynium.  Monitors couldn't display more than that in those days.  But I liked the 256 colour era that came shortly after that.  That's when EOB and M&M appeared.  The artwork for those was a hybrid of the cartoonish 16 colours and a more realistic style and it gave them a certain charm.  That's what I'm aiming for. :)

Thanks.  Yes, I'm still working on it.  It has changed a lot since I published that video.  The combat is turned based and now it has a more of a Wizardry 6 look and feel rather than the original Bard's Tale/Dragon Wars.  But it is still moving along.  I'd like to get it completed by the end of this year.

Only there.  I can Export and File > Open without any problems.  I'll try disabling the native support.

I can't seem to open a Sprite to import a palette.  I turn Indexation on, generate a palette from the sprite, click the triple dots and choose Open but nothing comes up.  This is what my log file looks like.

Godot Engine v3.5.1.stable.custom_build.53949c5dd - https://godotengine.org
OpenGL ES 3.0 Renderer: Apple M1
Async. shader compilation: OFF (enabled for project, but not supported)
 
ERROR: Signal 'gui_input' is already connected to given method '_on_label_gui_input' in that object.
   at: connect (core/object.cpp:1480) - Method failed. Returning: ERR_INVALID_PARAMETER
ERROR: Signal 'pressed' is already connected to given method '_on_button_reset_pressed' in that object.
   at: connect (core/object.cpp:1480) - Method failed. Returning: ERR_INVALID_PARAMETER
ERROR: Signal 'pressed' is already connected to given method '_on_button_add_key_pressed' in that object.
   at: connect (core/object.cpp:1480) - Method failed. Returning: ERR_INVALID_PARAMETER

Thanks.

I'm working on a retro dungeon crawler video game.  I just wanted to thank you for the rules being CC licensed.  I'm using Knave as the core mechanic with some house rules thrown in.  You can see the test of the character creation here.

Why not call it a Box in a Box since it's all Voxels?  Or May be FPS^3 (Cubed)?  I suggest changing Stumpy  to a Raccoon with an unhealthy obsession of large guns.

Hi,  Is there a license that your game rules are published under?  Thanks.

Thanks.

In the Races Upbringing tables, there are references to three different groups: Oath-Keepers, Spell-Weavers and Lore-Keepers.  Is there any information on these groups?  Thanks.

Thank you!  I will.

Hi,

I'm looking for a set of RPG mechanics and possible adventure setting that I can use as a basis for a video game jam that I'm working on (See screenshot).  If I can get the basic mechanics completed, I may want to turn it into a commercial game on a platform like Itch or Steam.  I'm going for an Old School look and feel.  Please correct me if I'm wrong but the CC4 license seems to allow me to do this but what kind of attribution should I put in the credits?  And may I use a "Powered by Heroes of Adventure" style logo?  And do I need to paraphrase wording in the rules or may I reuse the text in the guides for descriptions such as descriptions of classes and skills when the player is generating a character?  Thanks.

James (james@dungeon-crawl.com)

Thanks!

Thanks!

Thank you!

Strange Lands is a 32x16 isometric tileset with a Sci-fi theme.  The palette is bright and colourful and the tiles have a simple design for good readability.  This set is still in development with new tiles being added.  Requests / suggestions can be posted in the project's comments.

Thanks.  I look forward to the update.

I'm on an M1  MacBook Air running Monterey.  I'm not getting an error but I am getting an odd behaviour.  I have an isometric 4 direction animation with 8 frames stored over 32 PNG files.  I imported them in as an animation and after resizing them, I checked the frames which run from 0 to 3.2 seconds with each frame taking 0.1s.  When I go to export the animation as a sprite sheet, it said that it would export 33 frames and it appears to have doubled up at least one of the frames -- possibly more.

I've double checked the number of PNG files and the timeline and none of the frames appear to be doubled anywheres.  Oddly, the other parts of the walk cycle seem unaffected.  Did I do something wrong or is this an issue with the export?

James

These sprites were based on the look and feel of old B/W silent films.  Because there was no voice recordings for film at that time, descriptions were shown with unique borders around them to help progress the story-line.  These sprites attempt to recapture some of the aesthetic of those old films so that you can use them in your game.

If your game has a Noir or Silent Screen feel, then these Nine Patches were made with your game in mind.  These patches are suitable for the background of Title screens, Main menus and Dialogs.

Characters used in the above example Visual Novel screenshot can be found here.

Great work!  I love the house designs.  Very cute.  I really like that you included a Day and Night set for the village.  I noticed though that the yellow and blue water Lillies don't have a night version and the night version of the river stones seem to be 1 pixel too low compared to the day version.  I fixed both of these for my copy.  Thanks!

In EmuCore.getMouseHover(), I changed the window_mouse_x() call to device_mouse_x_to_gui(0).  I don't know if that is correct but it seems to work.

Hi.  I'm really liking Emu so far.  However, if I start the Demo in fullscreen mode, the hotspot areas for the tabs, close button and dialog title all seem to be off.  I haven't tried any other interactive control yet.  When I hover the mouse over about twice the height of the tab above the tab, then the tab will highlight.  When I'm in windowed mode, it seems to work fine.  Am I doing something wrong?  Thanks.

Great job!  I'm looking forward to seeing your Sci-fi tiles.  They are in such rare supply.  Thanks.

That worked!  Thanks!

Hi,

I just purchased GM Live and I'm not doing so well.  I'm using Windows for now.  Would like to get it working on my Mac but for now just trying to make sure I'm using it correctly on a platform I don't have to fiddle with.  

I have a room with the GMLive Object and a controller object that creates other objects in the same room, initially within the create event of the controller.  So I put the live_call() at the top of the Create Event of the controller object.  I figured that wouldn't work well since that event would only be called once in the game.  So I added a keyboard event that would restart the game with game_restart(), hoping that would trigger the create event again and load the changes.

I made changes to the code in the Create Event (just changed a color setting), saved and nothing happened.  Is there something special that needs to be done for supporting Created Event code? Or do I need to add more live_calls within the created game objects?  Or something else?  Thanks.

James